Tuesday, June 7, 2011

OPI - Burlesque collection glitters - swatches and review

This was a very good day for me so far so I decided I would make a nice glittery post for you guys, and show you all the glitters from the Burlesque collection. And do 2 comparisons.
This is super pic heavy.

(Yeah that picture has the Alice glitters in it too but you get the point.)

Before we get to the swatches:
Why has today been so good?
I got German nail mail. 18 bottles of it.

Martina was so sweet that she even included 2 color&go's from my wishlist. Thank you again, Martina!!

They were all wrapped up in German flyers in this big box of packing peanuts. It was like a nail mail treasure hunt!
Swatches to come in the upcoming days, I'm sure!

And then I got awesome blink tickets. Awesome ones.

I'm in row 11 of section 201. I'm pretty sure the 100 sections are going to be open floor.
So. Delighted. So much closer than the last time I saw them!! :D

Okay, now that's out of the way.
Keep reading for the glittery goodness!

You're probably wondering how I was able to swatch 6 glitter polishes without going crazy, but I didn't just swatch them. I wore each one for a few days! You can't just swatch glitter. It is too precious/difficult to remove.
I did wear them on my right hand only though because I was still swatching stuff on my other hand. So the pictures aren't my usual but I think I did an okay job at photographing my right hand.

I'll start with my least favorite, Extra-va-va-ganza.

Orange is my least favorite polish color, so it makes sense that this is my least favorite. But despite it being my least favorite, I still love it. You can do no wrong with glitter.

All but one of these glitters are a total random mix of glitter, with one dominant color. This one is orange with basically every other color mixed in.

Here is a close up!

This is 4 coats of glitter.
The more you use these polishes, the thicker they get, and you can use less coats.
This was my first time wearing this one so it was 4 coats and it is still a bit patchy in photos, but that is invisible in person.

Up next is Glow Up Already!

Glow Up Already! is mostly green-hued glitter, again with every other color mixed in. It is a really golden shade of green.

This one was also 4 coats because it was my first time using it.

I just love these glitters.

See all the colors?

This is Simmer And Shimmer.

This one is a light blue glitter, again, with tonnes of other colors mixed in. This one is a bit silvery.

This one is three coats as I have worn it before, so it was a bit thicker.

Love.

Now we have Sparkle-icious.
This one is a bit different from the others.

This one is made entirely of gold, blue, and fuchsia glitter.

It's still totally awesome though!

Loveeeee it.

Here we have Show It and Glow It.

Fuchsia glitter with all the other colors mixed in. Perfection.

I love this one sooooo much. This one is almost a 2-coater for me now because it's been used like 5 times between me and friends. (Meaning it also has the most gone from the bottle which makes me saaaaad.)

So awesome.
This one is tied for my fave of the collection.

This color is a bit similar to Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Rockstar Pink. Here is a bottle comparison:

Show It and Glow It has more silver in it while Rockstar Pink has a larger amount of blue and red.
Rockstar Pink is a really good, cheap alternative to these Burlesque glitters! The formula is basically identical.

And this is the other one tied for my favorite - Bring On The Bling.

This one is mostly gold, again with all the other colors mixed in. 3 coats.

It's a more muted shade of gold than you usually see.

I really can't pick a favorite between the last two.

I have another gold glitter - Milani's Gold Glitz. How do they compare?

Gold Glitz is much brighter and more yellow which shows you how Bring On The Bling is a bit muted.

One coat of Gold Glitz (these are not one-coaters as the bottle suggests) vs 3 coats of Bring On The Bling.
When I got Gold Glitz in a giveaway I was hoping I could use it as underwear for BOTB so it could last longer but it doesn't quite work.

It ends up still being brighter. This is just one coat over it though, so 2 coats might make it fine and then I would save one coat of BOTB! Hahaha.

One last thing: How does glitter look with Silver Shatter?
Not good.
Tiffany on the Polish-aholics Anonymous group asked what it would look like so I did it for her.

This was over a very dry coat of Seche Vite. And it did not look good.
The ladies on PAA suggested trying it over slightly wet polish, as that was successful for some of them.
So I added a fresh coat of glitter to my un-shattered thumb, and added shatter before it totally dried:

But it was worse.

I think shatter might work well over slightly wet SV? I have yet to try that. I'm sure it could work over glitter but it takes some experimenting.

Also I want to mention that glitter is a pain in the ass to remove. However, I don't use remover. I just pick it off. With a little bit of coaxing, these glitters will usually pop right off your nail in nail-shaped sheets. Haha!

But sometimes, that happens when you don't want it to. Through wearing these six glitters, I found that it stays on better without base coat, and without topcoat. (But some people will need to use topcoat to smooth out the glitter, but it isn't actually too gritty for me so I don't mind.)

Okay! That took forever! Did you make it this far?!
I hope you guys liked this post :)

I have to say that I'm with Melissa on this one. Sparkle-icious is definitely doing it for me, haha. :) Good on you for doing these swatches. I wouldn't have the patience to wear chunky glitters like that back-to-back. My 100% acetone and nails would take a HUGE hit.

I wondered why Rock Star looked so familiar when I picked it up. Sparkle-icious is my favorite of them tho, it looks like Marti-Gras in a bottle hehe so I got 2! One I am saving for a giveaway when I reach 100 followers :D Shimmer and Shimmer is my second favorite I just love blue glitter!! =x

Glow Up Already is my absolute favorite! I also love Simmer and Shimmer! I really appreciate the effort of putting this post together. It's very helpful! I've added Glow Up Already on my wishlist! lol. (: